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Haven Neal

Professor Campbell

UWRIT 1104

27 March 2018

When Psychopaths Wear Suits

Have you ever met a psychopath? You might think the answer is obvious: of course not.

You would know a psychopath if you saw one, right? You might think it would be easy to tell a

psychopath from a non-psychopath. When most people think about psychopaths, they picture the

“Hollywood psychopaths” such as Freddy Krueger with his burned face and knife fingers or

Chucky. They might also think about extreme real life psychopaths like Jeffery Dahmer who ate

his victims or Ed Gein who decorated his house with his victims’ body parts. But not every

psychopath will make your skin crawl when you meet them. Would you be able to tell a

psychopath from a normal person if they wore a nice suit, sat in a big office and were in charge

of a successful business? Have you ever left your boss's office, muttering under your breath, "My

boss is nuts!" Well, several studies suggest you may have hit the nail on the head. Studies have

shown that one in five CEOs are psychopaths. In fact, it is a lot more likely you are going to find

a CEO who is a psychopath than it is that you would find none (Hare). Chances are, if you work

in the business industry, chances are you have met a psychopath.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by pronounced emotional deficits,

reduction in guilt and empathy, and an increased risk for displaying antisocial behavior (Hare).

The disorder is developmental meaning it is present from early life. Psychopathic traits,

particularly the emotional component, are relatively stable from childhood into adulthood

(Munoz LC). The signs and symptoms of psychopathy are identified most commonly in
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scientific studies by Hare’s 20-item psychopathy checklist. Some of the symptoms the checklist

identifies includes lack of remorse or guilt, lying pathologically, inflated sense of self-worth,

having several marital relationships and a lack of realistic, long term goals. Psychopathy is

commonly mistaken as a mental illness. However, psychopaths are fully aware of right and

wrong and realize the consequences of their actions if they are caught (Hare). Psychopathy is a

spectrum, and we all fall on it somewhere. The spectrum of psychopaths includes CEOs,

surgeons, lawyers. Police officers and journalists (Dutton).Psychopathy is among the most

difficult disorders to spot. A psychopath can appear normal, even charming. However,

underneath the charm they can be manipulative, volatile and often but not always criminal. What

separates non-psychopaths from psychopaths is the ability to feel empathy. Although

psychopathy is a risk factor for physical aggression, it is by no means synonymous with it. In

contrast to individuals with psychotic disorders, psychopaths are in touch with reality and

seemingly rational. Psychopathic individuals are found at elevated rates in prisons and jails, but

can be found in community settings as well (Welcome). What makes some psychopaths

successful and others turn to a life of crime is determined by a number of things. IQ and

education is one part of it. Psychopaths who go down the dark road are less likely to have

received a good education, and may have had traumatic family experiences. According to Dr.

Swart, an executive leadership coach, medical doctor, neuroscientist, award winning author and

frequent keynote speaker, “the spectrum of psychopathic traits is like knobs you can turn up and

down. What tends to happen in lawyers and surgeons is they’ve turned up the ones that are really

vital to being a good lawyer or surgeon and turned down the ones that aren’t as helpful”. The

brain of a psychopath is very immature and functions at the level of an adolescent. The limbic
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system, the part of the brain associated with bonding, emotion, and memory, is damaged and not

at the stage is should be in most psychopaths.

Psychopathic behavior in the general population is about one in one hundred. Studies

have shown that 21 percent of corporate executives are psychopathic which is the same

percentage of prison inmates. Although the term “psychopath” tends to be seen as negative, some

characteristics associated with the disorder can be advantageous in a business setting (Solon).

The kind of career that can lead to being a CEO is attractive to a psychopath (Hare). Psychopaths

are so prevalent as CEOs because it is an irrational act to start a company. They have to be

uncompromising in their vision, which requires a lot of ego and persistence. They have to be

willing to sacrifice almost everything for success. Fear stops people from taking even logical

risks, meaning those who have suffered damage to areas of the brain affecting emotions and can

suppress feeling, make better decisions, according to the findings from a study carried out by

Stanford, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Iowa. The ability to control emotion

helps performance in business and the financial markets, the researchers found. Data suggests

that the same traits that lead some people to kill without remorse are the same traits that lead

others to win without remorse. In a corporation, one’s ability to advance is determined in a large

measure by a person’s ability to favorably impress his or her direct manager. Many of these

psychopathic traits could be very useful to an executive. Some helpful characteristics they have

are charm, a strong sense of self-worth, an ongoing need for simulation and even somewhat

negative traits like lack of remorse, impulsivity and lack of empathy can help a psychopath forge

a successful career. Psychopaths have a resilience to chaos. They thrive on chaos and they know

that other people find it stressful. A psychopath will purposefully create chaos just because they

find it easier to cope than other people. It is easy to mistake classic psychopathic traits for
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admirable leadership qualities. The psychopath’s ability to manipulate can look like good

influence and persuasion skills, the mark of an effective leader. it is beneficial to be a little

charming, tough-minded, impulsive, risk taking, courageous and even a bit socially

manipulative. We have the makings of a dangerous psychopath only when that little bit of charm

becomes devious manipulation; when self-confidence escalates to grandiosity; when occasional

exaggeration morphs into pathological lying; when tough-mindedness devolves into cruelty; and

when courageous risk-taking slides into foolish impulsiveness (Dutton).

A successful psychopath displays many of the core features if the malignant psychopathic

personality, but lives a life of success rather than crime and imprisonment (O. Lilienfeld).

Loosely put, a successful psychopath is one who avoids imprisonment. Successful psychopathy

can be represented in terms of three models. First, the differential-severity model proposes that

successful psychopathy is just a mild expression of clinical psychopathy meaning that successful

and unsuccessful psychopathy differ in intensity. Second is the Moderated-expression model.

This model views successful psychopathy as an atypical manifestation of psychopathy whose

less savory behavioral manifestations have been tempered by protective factors. It suggests that

successful psychopaths have characteristics that buffer them frim maladaptive outcomes. The

third model is differential-configuration model. This model states that successful psychopathy is

characterized by a different constellation of personality traits such as boldness and

conscientiousness. In contrast to the first two models, this model says that psychopathy is as

amalgam of two or more distinct traits and that successful and unsuccessful psychopathy differ in

their constituent traits (O. Lilienfeld). Compared with unsuccessful psychopaths, successful

psychopath may possess higher autonomic responsivity as well as superior executive

functioning. These factors are what may allow psychopathic traits to be channeled into socially
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adaptive, or at least less antisocial, manifestations. Studies have shown that successful

psychopaths are “protected” from their more unsavory tendencies. Successful psychopaths are

able to channel their traits into socially adaptive behavior. They have higher levels of

assertiveness and excitement-seeking, and also conscientiousness, including self-discipline. They

are also lower on agreeableness.

Although psychopaths only represent a relatively small percentage of the staff, they can

do enormous damage when in senior management positions. Psychopaths are most common at

higher levels of corporate organizations and their actions can cause a ripple effect throughout an

organization. Corporate psychopaths care for themselves but not for the organization that

employs them. Examples of detrimental effects are increased bullying, conflict, stress, staff

turnover, absenteeism and reduction in production. Job satisfaction is a determining factor in the

commitment, efficiency and productivity of employees within an organization. Corporate

psychopaths seek only their own rewards which creates poor communication, inadequate

training, lack of information and lack of help in the workplace. Because of this, job satisfaction

tends to be lower in the presence of managers who are corporate psychopaths. Low job

satisfaction ultimately leads to turnover which directly affects the profitability of an

organization. Psychopaths are cunning, untrustworthy, unethical, parasitic and utterly

remorseless. There is nothing they will not do and no one they will not exploit, to get what they

want. A psychopathic manager with his eye on a colleague’s job, for instance, will doctor finical

results, plant rumors, turn coworkers against each other and shift his persona as needed to

destroy his target. He will do all of this, and his bosses will never know. That is what makes

them particularly dangerous to organizations. According to FBI research that found that

departments managed by psychopaths decreases productivity and morale in the team, eight to
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fourteen people could be lost because of one psychopath. Psychopaths do well in certain risk-

taking professions however on the whole, they tend to cause far more damage to colleagues and

other business associates than good.

Employees of psychopathic leaders have reported being left to their own devices and not

given direction or hope for the future of their careers. Employees were denied a voice in

contributing to the running of the organization. They were denied proper teaching and were more

unsure of what to do or how to do it. Under non-psychopathic CEOs employees are given a

voice, were coached, mentored and trained which decreases staff overturn.

Companies can do several things to contain psychopaths at work. One being, make it easy

for workers to express concerns about colleagues. Have an anonymous tip line. Regular

employees are less useful to a psychopath than leaders so, the psychopath’s mask will often

come off in front of staff, and employees will pick up on the psychopath’s game before

management does. Second, they can cross-check their impressions of high-potentials with

colleagues who know them well. A psychopath will tell you everything you want to hear, and it

may be quite different from what he tells others. However, the best way to prevent psychopaths

from being in the workplace is not hiring them in the first place

A number of instruments for measuring psychopathy exist. Hare came up with the

Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). The PCL-R is the gold standard measure of

psychopathy in clinical settings. It can be modeled in terms of four factors. These four factors are

interpersonal (superficial or deceitful), affective (lacking remorse and empathy), lifestyle

(impulsive and lacks realistic goals) and antisocial (Mathieu). However, the PCL-R was not

effective at measuring psychopathy in business/corporate settings. The 113- item Business Scan

360 was developed specifically for measuring psychopathy in business/corporate settings. The
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113 items of this new instrument were based in behaviors, attitudes and judgments considered

problematic (Mathieu). There is still more research that needs to be done about successful and

nonsuccess psychopaths, but this is a step in the right direction to understanding how one person

with pronounced psychopathic traits can end up being the prototype of the habitual criminal and

another can end up being the prototype for agent 007.

We praise top executives who seem charismatic, visionary, and tough. As long as they

are increasing profits and stock prices, we are willing to overlook that they can also be callous,

conning, manipulative, deceitful, verbally and psychologically abusive, remorseless, exploitative,

self-delusional, irresponsible, and megalomaniacal. So, we collude in the elevation of leaders

who are sadly insensitive to hurting others and society at large (Deutschman). This does not

mean that all executives possess these qualities. Many business leaders are the most

accomplished, admirable people you will ever meet. But to get to the highest levels of an

organization there are sometimes elements of egocentrism and ruthlessness that can help one rise

to the top. This means that, unfortunately, psychopaths do have a higher chance at becoming

CEOs. Business owners need to become familiar with psychopaths’ traits and characteristics,

prevent psychopathic bonds from forming and take all observations seriously. Corporate

scandals could be prevented if CEOs were screened for psychopathic behavior. It is an extra step

in high-level hires and promotions, but it is a step worth taking when one considers the high

human and financial costs of psychopathic leadership.

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Works Cited

Anonymous. “Psychopaths Wear Suits, Too.” National Post (Index-only) 10 May 2006 : WK6.

Shermer, M. (2012, Nov 07). When madness pays off. Wall Street Journal Retrieved

from https://librarylink.uncc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-

com.librarylink.uncc.edu/docview/1139457397?accountid=14605

Deutschman, A. (2005, 07). IS YOUR BOSS A PSYCHOPATH? Fast Company, , 44-51.

Retrieved from https://librarylink.uncc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-

com.librarylink.uncc.edu/docview/228831659?accountid=14605

Do functional psychopaths make best CEOs? (2005, Oct 03). The Globe and Mail Retrieved

from https://librarylink.uncc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-

com.librarylink.uncc.edu/docview/383615312?accountid=14605

Kiaos, Theaanna. “Measuring for Psychopathy in the Workplace.” Linked In, 21 Dec. 2016,

www.linkedin.com/pulse/b-scan-360-measuring-psychopathy-workplace-theaanna-

kiaos.

Mathieu, C., Hare, R. D., Jones, D. N., Babiak, P., & Neumann, C. S. (2013). Factor
structure of the B-Scan 360: A measure of corporate psychopathy. Psychological
Assessment, 25(1), 288-293. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0029262

Morse, Gardiner. “Executive Psychopaths.” Harvard Business Review, 1 Aug. 2014,

hbr.org/2004/10/executive-psychopaths.

O. Lilienfeld, Scott & Watts, Ashley & Francis Smith, Sarah. (2015). Successful

psychopathy: A scientific status report. Current Directions in Psychological

Science. 24. 298-303. 10.1177/0963721415580297.

“Welcome to the Psychopathy Society.” Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy,

psychopathysociety.org/en/.
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